Cathexis
by DecemberResplendence
Summary: "God, just let me make my peace with the world. This is the only way I know how to live. I'm not a killer." How many times had he spoken those words? If not to Aro and Caius, then to Alistair? Or himself? Carlisle meets another vampire during his short stay with the Volturi. A vampire who tries to change him forever.


_Author's Note: I have never seen any of the movies, and the last time I read any book by Stephanie Meyer I couldn't have been older than twelve. So please forgive me if I'm a little rusty or inaccurate. I'm not really a Twilight fan, but I wanted to give Carlisle the story that I always thought he deserved._

x.x.x

There was no way he could have known. Not unless he had been blessed with some sort of mind-reading ability. But even then, Carlisle had taken such care to conceal his thoughts. In fact, ever since he had come to Italy, ever since he had found the civilized hierarchy of the Volturi lifestyle, he had sworn to never think of those years again.

And the only one who knew, he had thought, was Aro, the powerful leader of them all. But that was to be expected. He was immensely old, and just as unpredictable as he was in control. He had everyone wrapped around a delicate finger, such was his ability to domineer over everything that came before him. And he was terrifying in his way. How he could hold your hand with an amicability that suggested friendship, and at the same time ravage your every intimate thought with a savage abandon. He could see every memory you had ever possessed with the mere touch of a finger. Surely, he must have known.

And then, of course, there was Caius. In his own way, he frightened Carlisle a thousand times more than Aro did, for he was older still, and twice as brutal. Possibly the least civilized of them all, he was a restless, volatile being with all the depth of a very clear and shallow puddle. He was prone to boredom, which led him to do unspeakable things. And though he possessed no special abilities as far as Carlisle could see, that didn't seem to matter, for whatever he lacked in power he made up for in shear cruelty. You could see it in his eyes- he loved to spill blood.

The third Vampiric Aristocrat, the last ancient and powerful being who made up their bloodthirsty triplicate, was Marcus. He had been turned very young, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and his face held a constant expression of intense misery and sorrow. He often reminded Carlisle of those theatre masks, tragedy and comedy- only minus the latter. And he all but haunted the halls and corridors of their Volterra villa, his black cloak trailing behind him like a shadow. Whenever he believed himself to be alone his lips would twist into a word that seemed like 'Didyme.' Carlisle had once or twice considered asking Aro what it meant, but then had thought better of it, for fear that he might be told something he couldn't stand to know.

Still, beyond these three, there was no explanation for how he knew, this vampire who stood before Carlisle now. He had made of himself a different being- a being who had cut all ties to its past. A nighttime patron of the arts who frequented theatres and colleges. Who lived, in this new and modern era, for reason and politics and science. He would never again have to be that fragmented man that he once was. Not in Italy.

Or so he had thought.

But this vampire had changed it all. With eight words he had sent the entire grand glory of it crashing down on Carlisle's head. He had pulled off the mask, and left the blonde vampire breathless, and without words.

_'So, I see you're finally ready to live.'_

For all it was worth, it might have been funny, the sheer informality of it. But it was true that for the first few years after his making, Carlisle had attempted many times to end his life. It was also true that those years now made up a sort of stain on his ego. He was humiliated and ashamed of them, and had hoped to practically run away from that past when he'd turned up on the Volturi's doorstep nearly seven months ago.

"I see you're not going to respond." Eliseo. In truth, the Volturi hierarchy should have had four members, so fitting was he. He looked so different from the others, without the jet black hair of Aro and Marcus or the near-white of Caius. His was a natural brown, still in deep contrast with his stark skin- skin that might have once been olive. And whatever shade had colored his large eyes was, like all the others, impossible to discern, for all Carlisle could see in them now was glistening blood.

The way he stood made his hair fall all around his shoulders in a wavy tumult that strangely deified him, and his hands were clasped before him almost as if in prayer. An Italian saint he seemed, and perhaps an Italian saint he had once been. For he had once lived in a monastery studying under a priest, and had assisted him in receiving confessions. Beyond that, Carlisle knew nothing of him.

"Perhaps I'm getting off on the wrong foot with you. Maybe I should be asking you, instead, what you think of this glittering new era. You know those Americans have their freedom now, have had it for some time. And the Piano Forte has been featured in over a hundred different concertos and operas in the last half a century? You're a doctor, aren't you? Or you're trying to be. How is that working out for you? Aro laughs when he speaks of it."

Carlisle continued to stare, dumbstruck, watching the many candles perform a ballet of shadows across Eliseo's face. Forget any previous thoughts about Caius- this creature horrified him beyond any other.

"Why?" It was the only word that Carlisle could bring himself to say that made any sense.

"Why?" The brunette vampire smiled, his lack of fangs seeming like some sort of ironic joke. "Because you fascinate me. I just don't understand you. Your logic. Who do you think you're going to save?"

Carlisle ran his hands through his hair, his white fingers practically disappearing between the fair strands. He was blonde and blonde, even his white cloak left him all washed out in lightness. He appeared the constant opposite of his dark nature, except for, perhaps, his eyes. Once blue, and just as fair and soft as his hair, they were now a tumultuous amber brown. He himself was the only immortal he had ever seen that didn't have those terrible red irises.

"Save? I..." He shook his head, finding a chair to sink into without even looking. "I have no idea. God, just let me make my peace with the world. This is the only way I know how to live. I'm not a killer." How many times had he spoken those words? If not to Aro and Caius, then to Alistair? Or himself?

Eliseo didn't give him time to say anything else, because he was suddenly so close that Carlisle could smell the blood on him. Could smell the death that clung to him, that had probably never left him since his mortal life. And he must have been lingering in some tomb somewhere, such was the filth that coated him. Perhaps that was why Aro had not yet embraced him into their order. He couldn't stand dirt.

"We're all killers." He braced each ivory hand on either side of Carlisle's chair and leaned forward, his artificial breaths falling with a bizarre sweetness across Carlisle's face. He could not grow accustomed to it- the vampire's natural ability to attract its prey. They even worked on other vampires, those small charms. The very scent of Eliseo's hair alone was intoxicating. His eyes, though... they were frightening. Filled to bleeding with souls... souls that he had claimed, had drug down into the darkness with him.

Souls that he didn't deserve.

"Maybe you think so," The Englishman replied, patiently. "But I don't agree."

Carlisle possessed an untold amount of self-control, in leaps and bounds. It was that very self-control that had allowed him to come as far as he had. That kept him from running out into the street, grabbing the first human in sight and tearing them open with his bare hands. (To do so would have been a crime- the Volturi never hunted within their own city.) And he tapped into that bountiful spring now, when Eliseo was taunting him so that he should have lost his temper. Anger, however, was just about the most unnatural emotion imaginable to him.

He struggled to find something more to say.

"Will you come out into the city with me?" Eliseo spoke.

Carlisle narrowed his eyes, something like suspicion coming over him. "Why would you ask that of me?"

Hadn't he been tormented enough?

x.x.x

Out in the city, everything changed. Somehow, it was impossible to stay angry or irritated when surrounded by so much mortal beauty and ingenuity. People were everywhere, crowding the streets nearly stiflingly, even at this time of night. It certainly wasn't so late, perhaps eleven thirty at most, but the nightlife had to wind down at some point, even in Italy.

With a preternatural lithness, they pressed through the crowd, Carlisle and Eliseo. And upon reaching the market, they found a decent amount of shops to still be open. Above everything, an enormous church loomed, the only building that rivaled the Volturi's palazzo in its size and grandeur. The air was heavy with the scent of food. Yes, someone was selling pastries.

They approached the stand, mainly because Carlisle was gravitating towards it, and there a woman stood with her young son, doing business with a young couple. The smell of dessert was intoxicating. It must have been a hundred and fifty years, at least, since he'd eaten food. And surely this sudden craving now was being spurred on by his failure to feed within the last day or so. The last he had glimpsed himself, his eyes had been black with the hunger.

The mother turned to smile at him, and he smiled back, no doubt dazzling her with his great beauty. Then he turned his eyes down to the great array of pasteries. These indulgent sweets were nothing like anything he had known in his mortal life. Growing up in London; in a staunch Anglican household that deemed such things to be practically sins. As an immortal, they were ten times sweeter, and he was suddenly overcome with the desire to buy something.

_Sfogliatelle_. It was a new thing, a pastry that had only just been invented earlier in the century, and it was wonderful to behold, once it had been purchased and was safely in his grasp. In Italian, the word meant 'many leaves.' And so it appeared, crunchy and with the most interesting texture. Layers and layers of flaky crust sealed around, he assumed, some sort of creamy filling.

"Are you going to eat it?" Eliseo asked as they walked, his voice tinged with an edge of amusement.

Carlisle frowned. Was he? Was he actually planning to eat it? Just how human did he fancy himself to be? But then he found himself acting before he could think, and he brought the flaky thing to his lips, and took a bite of it. His heart... plummeted. Closing his eyes for a moment, he breathed in the perfect scent of its sweetness and begged his old God to give him just one miracle now. But it was just as he'd expected- the pastry was like ashes in his mouth. In fact, it was nearly sickening, and his stomach churned as he swallowed it, his body no doubt longing to reject the unnatural substance.

Eliseo smiled.

It was to the church that they ventured next, entering among its many pews and lighted alters. Incense was still burning, and had left the main room dim and hazy with smoke. Though they could both easily hear the movement of priests and other mortals throughout the building, none of them were to be seen, and so the vampires were alone.

"Does this bring back memories for you?" Carlisle asked, still battling to keep his continence under control.

Eliseo nodded dreamily, his eyes taking over a funny glaze as he wandered about the room. His hand grazed over the pulpit and the golden runner that lay across it, and Carlisle found he could sense the hunger growing in him.

"You know," the brunette vampire started suddenly, as if some divine force had spoken to him. "I was born during the fourteenth century, given the immortal blood in the year 1347. I was living in Florence, then. And I had no family, as far as I knew. I was studying to be a priest, and used to assist a specific priest during confessions..." He allowed his crimson eyes to stop as they passed over the crucified Jesus that hung behind the main alter. The candelight looked horribly unnatural in them, and yet, lent a strange sort of natural shadow to his pale face. He couldn't have been more than fourteen.

"It was a tall, dark man who made me. He said he'd come to see the priest, to seek salvation. But he didn't want anything more than to spread his great cruelty... or charity. Depending on how you look at it. He saved me from the plague... and gave me over to something else. But ever since then, I've been able to see a person's every regret out of sheer desire to do so. So Aro can see your every thought, so I can see your every self-proclaimed failure. _That..._ is how I knew." He turned back to look at Carlisle, all of the morbidity and nostalgia leaving him suddenly. "But now I'm hungry, and I can see that you are as well. I know that we'll have to travel to a different town before we can feed... we had best get going."

Carlisle did naught but nod, watching almost compassionately as Eliseo paused to genuflect before the alter. Then they both turned to go.

x.x.x

Carlisle never ate that night, choosing to return to Volterra hungry.

And it was a girl that Eliseo had chosen to take for his victim. She must have been twenty six, twenty seven at most. Older than the both of them- but who was counting mortal years anymore?

So was her enthrallment with them when they approached her on the street, when Eliseo took her into an alley, when Carlisle did nothing to stop it. Surely she, just like the pastry-seller, was completely enchanted by them. Who was not? And Carlisle knew himself to be overly beautiful, perhaps sickeningly so. His features were so soft, his blonde hair glittering with the new gas lights that illuminated the streets and walkways. But his attractiveness was no so deep or deceptive as Eliseo's, for it was with him that every girl old enough to speak fell hopelessly in love. His natural brown hair, round, dimpled face, straight nose that formed a flawless profile with his lips.

And yet, there was always something distinctly _adult_ about him, especially when he smiled. You could always see age like that in the eyes.

But, once he'd taken the woman into darkness with him, in the middle of that filthy alley, Carlisle had lost all conviction and vomited along the side of the street. It was the food he had eaten that had induced it- and it was a strange experience, since he didn't have any bodily fluids or substance other than the dry pastery to disgorge. Yet another reminder that his body was dried up and dead, and could sustain hardly a semblance of mortality inside it.

No, he was too depressed to stomach anything more.

But, to assume that that had been the end of the carnage was foolish, for when they returned Caius was putting on quite a spectacle in the great hall. Everywhere, there was blood, and Aro hardly batted an eyelash as he explained to them what had happened.

Caius had found a den of werewolves while they had been out, and now, with nothing but his bare hands, he had proceeded to tear them apart.


End file.
